Welcome to my health file.
My name is John Parsons, a doctor of chiropractic and my aim is to promote chiropractic and the healthcare secrets of natural products and foods,
to warn of the dangers of certain unnatural products and procedures,
and to make available the most time-tested natural products in the world, wherever possible free.

Friday, 29 May 2009

chiropractic for back pain on the NHS

this looks like a step in the right direction:

Patients with persistent low back pain should be offered chiropractic and acupuncture on the NHS, says NICEIt is the first time the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has explicitly backed the use of complementary therapies.The rationing watchdog said evidence suggests they help and will be cost effective if doctors stop providing less proven back services like X-rays.The move was welcomed by some charities and experts. Patients whose pain is not improving should have access to a choice of different therapies including acupuncture, and chiropractic.According to Professor Peter Littlejohns of NICE,"Low back pain is a very common problem affecting one in three adults in the UK each year, with an estimated 2.5 million people seeking help from their GP.For many people the pain goes away in days or weeks. But for some, the pain can persist for a long time and become debilitating."NICE says anyone whose pain persists for more than six weeks and up to a year should be given a choice of several treatments, because the evidence about which works best is uncertain.In addition to painkillers and regular advice to stay active and carry on with normal activities as much as possible, patients, together with their doctor, can decide to opt one of three complementary treatments.This includes up to eight exercise sessions or 10 sessions of acupuncture over 12 weeks, or a course of manual therapy, which includes up to nine sessions of chiropractic.

The costs to the NHS would be minimal - in the order of £77,000 - because they are offset by the savings in terms of reducing future disability and healthcare needs and moving away from treatments with little supportive evidence.The guidelines, which apply to England and Wales, say doctors should no longer offer spinal x-rays or MRI scans or injections of therapeutic substances into the back for non-specific low back pain.The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy welcomed the guidelines, as did Dr Dries Hettinga of the charity BackCare.He said: "This offers a real choice for patients."This guideline will help patients understand what treatment and care can help them with their back pain and shows that there can be a positive outlook for treating this condition."